The present invention relates to an apparatus for carrying out a short period of heating of beans or grains under high-pressure steam and removing the heated feed material from the machine at the same time that the heating operation is finished.
The present inventor developed a method whereby soybeans are first briefly flash-heated at a high temperature so that the characteristic enzymes present in the soybeans are inactivated, with as little denaturation as possible of the soybean proteins. A Japanese Patent Application, No. Sho 50-133853 discloses "A Method for Improvement of the Flavor of Soybean Processed Foods", and the present invention involves the production equipment relating to that method.
Conventionally, for the cooking of beans, etc., batch-system pressurized cookers (autoclaves) and continuous-system pressurized cookers have been employed, but the present invention is an apparatus which makes possible short-term cooking which can not be carried out in the conventional pressure cookers. The cooking time which is deemed necessary is an operation taking 1 minute or less from the heating through the cooling, and in some cases, only 10 seconds. An apparatus able to satisfy these conditions can not be found among the conventional pressurized cookers.
The present invention will now be described by referring to the accompanying drawings.